Featured Showcase: Stories from Across America

Our second screening, Friday, October 1st at 2:30pm should be enough to get both the comedy and drama lovers amongst you out to the fest. Stories From Across America features a variety of gripping, hilarious, gut wrenching and hopeful stories from Pittsburgh to Louisiana to California and everywhere in between.

Skimming the Surface is a documentary by film student Landon Lott, who returned to his home town in Louisiana at the end of the spring semester to discover, well… oil. Everywhere. In his words, “We are not formally trained in journalism, but feel an obligation to shed light on the issues concerning The Spill that have remained in the dark… The footage that we collected was worse than I could ever have imagined. I have no better word to describe the way I feel than heartbroken.” Want the real behind-the-scenes at one of the worst ecological disasters in U.S. history? This is your film.

Woebegone is the tale of two women traveling the country together, and what happens when they actually stop and look around them. It is a great character study, and our screeners unanimously picked it out for its incredible story, meaningful dialog and stellar acting by the two leads. But check out the trailer for yourself:

Astronaut Goes From Migrant Fields to Outer Space claims nothing it does not deliver. Based on a poem by a NASA astronaut who started work in the states as a migrant worker, this film is an uplifting look at the American Dream.

Vignettes of a Writers Block is a goofy series of skits covering everything from how the other planets feel about Pluto, to how not to apply sunblock, to the feeling of writer’s block itself.

Tommy & Me follows the true story of a homeless man in Pittsburgh’s Strip District who goes from being seen as a nuisance to finding himself the unofficial mascot of the Pittsburgh Steelers. It evidently happened. And as the festival programmers will attest, even not being sports fans, the film still manages to hit ya right in the heart.

And if that wasn’t enough, check out the trailer for The Story of Buck Johnson:

Don’t miss this screening. It’s like a tour around the country without having to lift yourself out of your comfy, comfy seat. And almost all of them are at least Philadelphia premieres, so if you live in the city, you’ve probably never seen ’em!